- I considered a New Years resolution of not blogging about Ron Paul anymore, but then decided against it. There's a duty to face this scourge of the American polity head on, etc., etc., and who am I to put my own blood pressure above duty? But I do want to cut back, because honestly it gets frustrating. So I'm simply going to note that rather than writing a post about this Glenn Greenwald post, I have some comments on it over at Ryan Murphy's blog. Believe it or not people, there is a huge moderate, rational, reasonable, and in my view correct middle ground between the Bush doctrine and the Paul doctrine. Accusing those of us who occupy this territory of sacrificing "intellectual honesty" demonstrates that Greenwald is either confused, a jerk, or both.

- And sort of in the same vein, Bob Murphy has a defense of the Mises Institute inspired by all this "racist newsletter" stuff. He makes some great points. I've said many times on here that I absolutely do not think Ron Paul is a racist. The same goes for the Mises Institute, DiLorenzo's Lincoln stuff, etc.. Of course, that doesn't mean that we can't note that because of our views on race and American society, we have a lot of concerns about Paul, DiLorenzo, Hoppe, etc. - we can absolutely say that. I have said that. But I think people should be careful about throwing around the word "racist" [and perhaps Hoppe does deserves the label... I don't want to weigh in on Hoppe specifically - other people probably know him better].

- Finally, for wine drinkers in the Mid-Atlantic area, I have to recommend Cooper Vineyards and Nassau Valley Vineyards. In addition to some old stand-bys, these made for a nice New Year's Eve party (Norton Reserve from the former, and Cabernet from the latter).

10 comments:

What exactly is that middle ground? Given that Ron Paul is pro-ICBM, pro-retaliation, pro-defense-spending (but anti-military-spending), what is that middle ground?

Or did you mean Paul is the middle ground?

It's not like Ron Paul is in favour of 100% demilitarization and pacifism, because his statements clearly indicate the contrary.

I am not even enthusiastic about defending that man, but what is the middle ground?

PS: US intervention in WW2 was a gray area, and not the inscrutable sacred cow some people pretend it was. Third Reich Germany never threatened to conquer Kansas, for god's sake, so it's not like a farmer in North Carolina or Illinois was personally threatened by Germans.

- Holding combatants who have been fairly certified as combatants for the duration of a war and providing habeas corpus rights is a middle ground between not providing those rights on the one hand and insisting that combatants be treated like criminal offenders on the other.

- Recognizing that we have a legitimate purpose in Afghanistan but not in Iraq is a middle ground between thinking we should have been in both countries on the one hand, and thinking we should have been in neither on the other.

- Recognizing that we can do some important covert and espionage work against the Iranian regime, which has sponsored terrorism around the world, is a middle ground between alluding to start a war with Iran on the one hand, and conflating covert operations with war on the other.

- Recognizing that Israel is one of the most reasonable partners we have in the Middle East despite the heavy handedness of the regime is a middle ground between always doing everything Israel wants on the one hand, and wanting to weaken our relationship with Israel on the other.

If you're interested in more detail, I wrote a lot over at Ryan Murphy's blog. I'm really not interested in more Greenwald/war blogging or even more Ron Paul blogging.

There's something about the inevitable accusations of being a statist, a warmonger, or being lumped in with the George Bush crowd that really turns me off and makes me realize that a lot of my opposition on these points isn't interested in a reasonable discussion or in taking what I have to say seriously. So I think that's all from me on this today.

Thinking that it's perfectly legitimate to have military jails that follow the rule of law is a very crucial middle ground between a torture regime with no habeas corpus rights on the one hand, and thinking we should close Guantanamo down completely on the other.

See... now I'm getting myself frustrated and ready to snap at someone who says that Obama is no better than George Bush. They say that what you do on New Years day is what you do for the rest of the year, and I don't want to be frustrated for 2012, so I'm going to stop and go do a jigsaw puzzle with Kate now :)

Reading through your list I can say that you throwing in the phrase "middle ground" doesn't really prove that you're right; it is a nice rhetorical flourish though.

Let's blow apart what you've written in the comments...

"Holding combatants who have been fairly certified as combatants for the duration of a war..."

How do you know they have been "fairly certified" exactly? Almost everyone at Gitmo has never had any sort of independent determination of their status (what they have had is a determination by the executive branch).

Then there is a bit about habeas rights; which the government continues to deny these folks and fight claims regarding.

"...and insisting that combatants be treated like criminal offenders on the other."

Since it is the U.S. government that is insisting that they be treated like criminal offenders this comment makes no sense. That's the whole point of the Bush and Obama administrations labeling them the way they do; they'd like to try them outside the civilian court system because it is presumably easier to get a conviction that way (though, convictions have not been hard to come by in the civilian courts when the government has brought something resembling a non-paranoid case).

"Recognizing that we have a legitimate purpose in Afghanistan..."

What legitimate purpose is that exactly? OBL is dead; it is no longer any sort of "safe haven" for AQ; etc. The U.S. is spinning its wheels in Afghanistan and has been for a long time. Why we are there is basically inertia.

Yo, we're already in an undeclared, quasi-war with Iran; and the U.S. has sponsored terrorism around the world (often in false flag operations), the U.S. is not some universal protector against rogue regimes in other words (despite the romantic, flowery rhetoric about that you hear all the time).

There is nothing non-middle groundedness about saying, maybe we should stop the foreign aid shipments to Israel. It is a perfectly reasonable position to take.

So at best "middle ground" = what you believe in, and that isn't really any sort of compelling argument at all.

1) The Taliban never attacked US. The Al Qaeda did. The Taliban faced a war from the US due to guilt by association with Al Qaeda (allegedly some of its members helped shelter bin Laden). The oppressive nature of the Taliban regime notwithstanding, I don't see how Americans faced aggression from them.

2) American foreign aid and assistance goes to several states with certain factions that are anti-West and anti-Israel. Supposing foreign aid from US were to end entirely, then Kosovar, Bosnjak, Sudanese, Pakistani, and Yemenite jihadists would be weakened in their ability to bolster their armed strength. Given that terrorists in those region depend on corrupt contacts in the government, they would receive fewer quality weapons that they can smuggle to other jihadists abroad. How is that not protecting Western interests in the Orient?